Canon PowerShot G12 - Test Shots: ISO Performance

A selection of images taken at the camera's incremental light sensitivity settings, using only available daylight.



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With ISO Auto selected the G12 has itself chosen a setting which equates to ISO500, so little in the way of noise evident.

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Examining the same frame at ISO100 - with the option to go as low as ISO80 if warranted - and we have a very clean and clear image.

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Stepping up a couple of notches to ISO200, and to be particularly picky there's some very fine grain beginning to creep into shadow areas evident when cropping, but not so you'd notice under normal circumstances.

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Another couple of notches around the dial and we're at ISO400, usually the setting at which noise begins to creep in if we're unlucky. Here we're just starting to lose definition in the shadow areas upon close inspection, but again only very slightly so.

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A bit less in the way of sharp edge definition at ISO800, but not much worse in terms of visible noise over ISO400.

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A softer image at ISO1600, and we've got a wash of fine grain across the entire image, not just within the shadow areas. That said, sufficient detail has been maintained to make this setting perfectly usable.

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At top ISO3200 setting we're both losing detail and getting a pitted appearance across the whole frame as image noise eats away at our test sample.

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...And so we've tried shooting our test image with Low Light mode selected, which effects an image drop to 2.5 megapixels. Here the camera has itself chosen a setting which equates to ISO1600, but because of the resolution drop we have a surprisingly bright and clear image, even if it is only 400k in size.
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